Alcohol expectancies, Cultural Orientation and Self-efficacy among Chinese Adolescence: A key to effective prevention programs

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationships between alcohol expectancies, cultural orientation, self-efficacy and drinking behavior, and provide theoretical support for the development of education programs aimed at preventing adolescent's alcohol abuse.

METHODS An anonymous quantitative survey of 2,756 tenth and eleventh grade students in six senior high schools in Zhengzhou and Xinyang city of Henan Province was conducted in November 2005 and data was analyzed by SPSS 13.0 software. Data were gathered with questionnaires that benefitted from careful development over a number of years.

RESULTS Direct and indirect relationships were found between Chinese traditional culture orientation, western cultural orientation, alcohol positive expectancies, alcohol negative expectancy, alcohol self-efficacy and alcohol drinking behavior. Alcohol positive expectancy, alcohol negative expectancy, alcohol self-efficacy directly affected alcohol drinking behavior (path coefficients = 0.234, -0.282 and -0.346 respectively). Lower monthly drinking was directly associated with higher self-efficacy and higher negative expectancies, lower positive expectancies and lower western culture orientation scores (coefficients = -0.346,-0.282, 0.234 and 0.162 respectively), but not Chinese cultural orientation scores.

CONCLUSIONS Drinking behavior is affected by expectancies, self efficacy and culture orientation, each of which is learned, suggesting that the development of education programs could focus on these student belief patterns, helping the students to correct unsupported expectancies, enhance self-confidence and the skills of self-control related to alcohol use, and understand the significance of cultural orientation in decision making.